There has been several attempts by those skilled in the art to develop an improvement over the traditional wood handles for striking or prying tools such as shovels, picks, axes, claw hammers and the like.
It is well-known that strong unidirectional fiber sheets can be incorporated into elongate shapes, such as baseball bats, golf club shafts, tennis rackets and the like, however, such methods are relatively complex, too expensive, or lack some characteristics which deem them less than fully satisfactory for less expensive tool handles and the like.
There are many examples of prior articles molded in various shapes and constructed with pre-formed expanded foam cores covered by an outer skin of a different material and some having a foam core covered with a unidirectional sheet of fibers for strength.
However, the prior art has yet to find a satisfactory construction utilizing a foamed in place core and reinforcing fiber construction covered by a suitable foam skin which offers the benefits of high resistance to bending moments and strength and which can be made using a relatively simple and inexpensive molding process.